Third Post

      On the Road, like Howl, provides uncensored insight into the lives of the Beat Generation. As Dean and Mary Lou’s relationship grows bland, Dean asks Sal to have sex with her in order to see how she is with another man. What ensues is a brutally awkward situation that leaves Sal and Mary Lou feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable. Dean, as usual, does not give the experience much thought. This is yet another example of his tendency to objectify the women in his life. Throughout the novel there is abundant consumption of alcohol and drugs. Sal describes these parties as a temporary escape that always leads to a melancholy feeling in the morning. He also writes that he admires Dean’s quest to keep moving and search for “IT”, his ever-elusive conclusion about the world. 

      Sal writes that Dean seeks this clarity in music, drinking, and sex. When listening to a live Jazz musician whom he calls ‘God’, Dean sweats profusely and shakes with passion. He explains to Sal that the man in front of them has grasped the meaning of “IT”. Dean admires ‘God’ for having reached a spiritual nirvana, and continually tries to explain to Sal what he means by his search for “IT”.  Dean tells Sal, “...the point being that we know what IT is and we know TIME and we know that everything is really FINE.” (p. 197). The idea of understanding the world and placing faith in chaos brings comfort to Dean; however, it also makes him forget his worldly concerns and logic. 

      When traveling with Sal, Dean never changes the bandage on his injured hand. Sal describes the bandage as growing dirty and floppy. He writes, “By now Dean’s thumb bandage was almost as black as coal and all unrolled” (p. 231). Dean’s lack of concern for his own injury represents his detachment from his own well-being. He spends all his energy and thought chasing the invisible “IT”. As Ginsberg wrote in Howl, the madness in Dean is slowly destroying him. In his pursuit of clarity, Dean seeks true freedom from societal constraints. He soon learns, however, that the constructs of society have great power over the individual. 

      Over time, Dean and Sal begin to sink into a maddening haze of drugs and alcohol. Sal describes drinking “sixty glasses of beer” (p. 233) and later retiring to the toilet and going to sleep. He writes that he is “embryonically convoluted among the rubbishes of my life, his life, and the life of everybody concerned and not concerned.”(p. 233). At this point in the novel, Sal has become deeply mixed into Dean’s madness and unrelenting quest. He has reached a level of numbness and carelessness that he can no longer escape. The melancholy feeling he earlier described as coming the morning after a party has now begun to set in permanently. Sal writes, “What difference does it make after all?- anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what’s heaven? what’s earth? All in the mind.” (p. 233).